Prior to the present invention, hotels have offered a limited degree of in-room entertainment services. Such services have typically involved a cable TV-based system in which a guest selects either a home box office (HBO)-type movie and entertainment channel at no cost, or, alternatively, pay-per-view services. Such pay-per-view systems have heretofore involved the generation of a menu display for a user to select a desired pay-per-view option such as a one of limited number of recently released movies.
In isolated instances, certain pay-per-view services have been expanded by establishing communication links between rooms in a hotel (or even between rooms in different hotels) to permit guests to play trivia-type games. Such systems operate in response to hotel guest entries via a television-type remote controller and use satellite and/or telephone communication links.
Such hotel-based entertainment systems are extremely limited in the range of entertainment services provided. For example, such systems do not permit each guest to play complex video games which generate moving object and background characters on the fly, like the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commercially marketed by the applicants' assignee.
The present invention is directed to a video game/communications system which permits hotel guests to actively participate in video game play or to use other data processing/communication services. In an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a multi-tasking master host computer which preferably stores video games and other application programs on its hard disk, downloads programs to an array of SNES game playing engines in response to guest selections. Each hotel guest room includes a terminal device which is coupled to the guest's color television and to a game controller (which in the illustrative embodiment is a modified version of the commercially available SNES game controller that includes a game reset key, a menu key, and volume-related keys).
By pressing a game controller menu key, the hotel guest initiates the downloading of applications software by the host computer to the array of SNES engines located within the hotel. A downloaded applications program generate a display menu which appears on the guest's television. In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the display menu advantageously permits each hotel guest to select between various operating modes (identified, for example, by displayed icons), including movies, games, shopping, survey forms, language selection, communication/data processing services, etc. If a user opts for video game play, then the available game titles and/or descriptions thereof are displayed.
When the host computer at a hotel-based head-end station receives a guest's game choice, it typically loads a game program from its hard disk into one of the bank of SNES game playing engines, which also may be located at the head-end station. Although the precise number of game playing engines incorporated into the system may vary depending upon the number of guest rooms in the hotel and system usage, it is presently preferred that approximately eight SNES game playing engines be installed per 200 guest rooms.
In accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the host computer assigns a time slot to both a guest room terminal and a SNES game playing engine for passing game play indicating key strokes from the room's game controller to the SNES engine. The guest room terminal samples the SNES game controller 60 times per second for key strokes. Key stroke data is passed from the guest terminals through an interface which includes an RF modem and then to the bank of SNES engines.
Audio and video outputs from each of the SNES engines is connected to a channel modulator that places the composite signal on an assigned frequency in the RF distribution system. The assignment is communicated to the room terminal during an initial interactive session, whereby the terminal tunes the TV to the proper channel for its assigned SNES engine.
Once game play begins, each hotel guest using the system operates the SNES game controller as if an individual SNES was directly coupled to the room TV as in a conventional home system. When a hotel guest's playing time is expired, the host computer instructs the guest's terminal to suspend play and displays a menu which permits the guest to purchase more game playing time, if desired.